Making Finger Paint

My daughter LOVES arts and crafts. Me... not so much. She has been wanting to paint lately as she has seen me painting. We were out of paint (for her) and I ran across a recipe today for making finger paint. So we tried it.You can find the recipe here. It's at the bottom of the page.

And here is Daniel's picture...

And here is one of Reagan's MANY pictures.....

Daniel's Dog bite

We have been working on trying some different medications for Daniel's ADHD. So far nothing has worked except for the Intuniv but since it made him sleep half of the week away we had to try something else. I had just called my Dad an hour or two before saying I wasn't sure we were going to make it through the weekend. Daniel couldn't stop hitting, pushing and etc. 

I went down into Reagan's room to paint some more thing on her wall. I heard the door in Daniel's room open and knew he was headed outside. This is the first time he's ever gone outside by himself even though he has a sliding glass door in his room. I thought it's okay. I am practically looking out the window anyway, he should be okay. He was out there less than 5 minutes when he walked into Reagan's room with blood dripping down from his face. I thought he had fallen down, and I kept asking him what had happened but he wouldn't tell me. Two things were at play here- The first was that he knew he had done something he shouldn't have and the second that he was in shock. It took me about 15 minutes to get what happened out of him. He had walked over to the neighbors and opened their backdoor and let their dog out. Apparently this particular dog is a rescue dog and doesn't like little kids. It bit Daniel on the hand and on his face. It wasn't that bad but I did end up taking him to the emergency room as I didn't know if he needed shots or anything. They put him on antibiotics just in case. They aren't really worried about it. But hopefully Daniel learned an important lesson. You don't enter other people's homes uninvited!

Funny Things the Kids Say

Reagan loves to sing and sings nonstop. She sings about whatever is on her mind. If she had a an album some of her song titles would be -
When I Die I Want to Live With Uncle Johnny
Heavenly Father Loves You He Really Does and I Do Too
I love Cyrus
and my personal favorite that had me laughing so hard I was crying...
When I Pick My Nose Like My Daddy Do

Daniel came crying to me one day and I asked him, "Did you hurt your leg?" He replied, " No I hurt my mountain." He was speaking of his buttock.

Daniel- "Mom, I just bit my tongue from a bless you!(sneeze)

One night for dinner Reagan said the prayer. After the usual stuff she said, "Please bless us that we can have cookies."

For a couple of months whenever saying the prayer either of the kids would add into the prayer, "Please bless Jesus as he goes to work in outer space."

What Has Calleen Been Up To?

I have been a terrible blogger for the last several months.... In December we were sick for the entire month and by the time I was getting things back in order from that we left for a month for my Grandmother's funeral. But I wanted to show you some of what I've been up to in spite of those things. And my excuse for not blogging as much...

In December I made hats for all the Young Women that I work with. This is one that is left over and one that isn't quite as pretty but I made 12 hats for all the girls and I am told they really liked them (I was sick so I didn't get to give them to them in person.) I did different colors, different patterns and it was really a nice thing to sit and do as I held sick kids in my arms as they couldn't do anything but lay there and I could still feel productive. The pictures aren't the greatest because they are taken from my phone.

My next project was this adorable sweater for Reagan. It turned out really cute though slightly on the small side. I need to make another one a little bigger.

My next project was a sweater for my new nephew Jake. It didn't turn out quite as well as I had hoped but it's still cute and I hope to finally get it off in the mail this week (Oh, and the buttons sewn on!)

And my current projects... When we moved into this house, there was painting that needed to be done and our landlords gave us a break on the rent so I am finally getting to it. I decided to start with Reagan's room as the paint was coming off the molding around her door. It is still a work in progress but here is the one wall I have finished.

She picked out the paint color. It's called April blush. I knew that I wanted to stencil flowers on the walls, but when I started pricing stencils, I was appalled. They were over $100 each most of them. A good friend said, don't waste your money, get some card stock and print them out on the computer and make your own. So that's what I did. I think it's pretty good for never having done anything like this and for not being able to draw even a decent circle. I'm slowly finishing it while I start on the kids bathroom. I've taken a breather for a couple of days as I am worn out.

I'm also working on this for my sister April's birthday. It wouldn't let me take the picture off the website. I'm doing it in red which I think she will like. It's going to be a little late...

My next project I'm really excited to start because I found this adorable website for crocheted patterns for little kids. So check out this this website I am going to make the Juliet dress for Reagan for this summer. I don't think it will be too hard to add some cap sleeves.

Good news for Daniel

Daniel got some good news today. His Speech Therapist called and said that if he makes any improvement at all when they go to test him again in the next couple of weeks from his last test that they gave him a few months ago, he will not qualify for speech therapy next year. This means that he has gone from having a rating of moderate/severe, speech imparement to a high mild rating in less than a year. She said for him to be able to do that means that he is VERY smart. He really has worked hard at this and you can really tell his improvement. He will continue with speech over the summer regardless of what his test scores are. It makes  me nervous though as I felt like he had lost a lot while we were gone for that month. Hopefully we can cement things enough over the summer so that he will never need speech again!

On another note for him- He had been having problems sleeping all time. Here he is in the grocery cart asleep...We discovered it was his ADHD medication, so now we are trying a new one for him. Hopefully this one works as the last one we tried kept him up for 20 plus hours a day. Mom couldn't quite handle that.

The End of the Journey

This is entitled "The End of the Journey but frankly there was a lot more journey left. We were stuck in CA, it was Saturday and the next flight out wasn't scheduled until Monday night. So we called up Aunt Joyce and Uncle Milton and begged and pleaded to come there (really we just asked and they graciously and immediately agreed.) They live in Bakersfield CA which was about a 4 hour  drive from where we were at Travis Air force Base. The kids and I headed back down I-5 for the second time on our trip. Luckily it's a pretty drive with lots of orchards just starting to bloom. Aunt Joyce and Uncle Milton have a beautiful home. I hated to impose on them as this is where my Grandma had been living and they had just been through a lot with having her there and dying, but Uncle Milton said it was good for Aunt Joyce so she could have a few more days before she had to figure out what she was going to do with her time now that she didn't have Grandma. They've just now become empty nesters as Grandma and Grandpa moved in with them when their youngest was still at home.During this time we learned that my Great Aunt Vida my paternal Grandfather's sister had passed away. That made 3 deaths and I sincerely hope that we are done with deaths and funerals for awhile.

It was so nice to be in a place where they were okay with kids running around and playing. They had lots of toys for them and spoiled them rotten when it came to breakfasts! Aunt Joyce made them a hot breakfast every morning and since Daniel loves anything with syrup he got his share of french toast, pancakes and waffles. They didn't just stop at the syrup either. He had syrup, butter, whipped cream and homemade strawberry jam all together on them. He's been trying to talk me into letting him have that ever since we've been home. On Valentine's day Aunt Joyce made them heart shaped french toast. They were so kind and made that day so special for my kids when I totally forgot about it. (Maybe the month long travel and deaths and funerals had something to do with it.) Uncle Milton took them to the park where they had a blast. Reagan especially loved to be able to go to the park on this trip. She's been asking for months to go to the park but here in AK they are covered in snow and ice and when its 10 degrees outside, Mom's not too inclined to go to the park.

On Monday my cousin Mark and his family came to see us. That really meant a lot to me that he took the time to come specifically to see me. Until the funeral I hadn't seen him since he had left on his mission which was about 15? years ago. Now a wife and 6 kids later... Who knows when we will see each other again. So I appreciate the time he spent with me and the inconvenience it was for his family. And a thank you to Aunt Joyce and Uncle Milton who roasted hot dogs and hamburgers and served their famous rootbeer. Not a fan of the rootbeer myself, (It's the homemade yeasty kind.) but it good for the memories.

Later in the week Aunt Joyce and Uncle Milton took us out to see the Kern river. I had other pictures... But these are some great ones that Uncle Milton took.

Twice a week Aunt Joyce watches two of her great granddaughters so her granddaughter in law can go to school. The kids loved having Lexi and Brielle there to play. Again, I had pictures... Their Grandma, (my cousin) Wendi and her husband came by one night too. I just love family. If anyone wants to come visit me here and stay a week or two we've got room!

Meanwhile on Monday they canceled the flight from Travis, and all flights home were $700 plus per person. So I was calling Elmendorf Air force base as well as Eilsen Air force base (in Fairbanks) to see if they were getting flights from anywhere that we could drive to. All week long there was nothing but one flight from Bangor Maine and that was a bit far to drive to get to. I might as well drive home if I was going to go for that. I was so frustrated and we all desperately wanted to go home. Reagan stopped talking to Paul at all. She was mad that we weren't home with him.Aunt Joyce's and Uncle Milton's was wonderful and I was so grateful to have somewhere to be. Finally there was a flight scheduled for Saturday. After spending a week there we said goodbye and drove back up I-5.

I got a hotel room on base as we were supposed to report in for our flight at 1:30 am.We checked in and tried to get a little rest. I arranged with a shuttle agency to pick us up and take us over to the terminal. It's only 3 blocks but at 1 in the morning you don't feel like walking. We waited and waited for the shuttle guy and he never showed up. So I walked the 3 blocks with my 2 kids, 2 suitcases, 2 car seats, and various other bags at 1 in the morning. Only to get there and be told that the flight once again had been canceled for passengers. Needless to say I broke down crying.The next flight was maybe the next night. Some kind strangers took pity on me and drove me back to the hotel where we were able to get our room back. I was not in a good place that night.

At this point I was stuck in a hotel no car (we'd returned it thinking we would be leaving) and nothing to do with 2 kids. There was the bowling alley across the street, but everything else in walking distance was closed. Lots of t.v. The next night the flight was canceled. At this point we had been gone almost a month and we couldn't stay gone forever, so Paul used the airline miles he had and we found that Alaska Air has special rates for Military. The kids and I finally flew home late Wednesday night. The kids and I were about 48 hours short of being gone 4 weeks, and had driven over 2700 miles and were finally home. Can I tell you that I seriously considered kissing the ground?

Daniel did fabulously the entire trip until the day we left, and then he lost it. He didn't regain "it" until 3 weeks later until he finally adjusted to being back home. We are not sure we are ever leaving home again. At least not for another year.